Today, Denmark’s premier roots-rockers Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado have released an official music video for “Navigation Blues,” the title track off their new album, out September 30th via Provogue / Mascot Label Group.
A sepia-tinged pre-war blues stomp that sees Risager yearn, “Truckloads of darkness here, and my matches are soaking wet…will this black night ever end,” the song spins an ominous tale of being lost in an abyss, with no direction home. “Sometimes your GPS is just not working and your maps are torn apart and you don’t know what to do or where to go,” Thorbjørn reflects.
Over the past twenty years, Thorbjørn Risager & The Black Tornado has blazed a trail across Scandinavia, Europe, Canada, the US and Asia. They’ve been captivating crowds with their dynamic stage presence and a sound that fuses soul, Chicago blues, boogie and rock ‘n’ roll with a voice where Ray Charles, Van Morrison and Billy Gibbons meet in the middle. They’ve brought dancing shoes to Europe’s largest festival stages and low-light noir-ish blues to Jazz clubs around the globe.
The band have already released the lyric videos for “Fire Inside” and “Watch the Sun Go Down” from the album.
Two decades on the road have given the band an incredible ability to know what makes people move – in both feet and heart. On Navigation Blues, they use this skill with complete precision, whether it be the front-porch blues of “The Way You Make Me Feel” to roof-raising rockers such as “Fire Inside” or “Headed for the Stars” to the gentle ache of “Blue Lullaby” and “Heart Crash.” But their showmanistic sense of adventure is never far away, which can be seen on the rock ‘n’ roller “Hoodoo Lover” or the boogie of “Taking the Good With the Bad.”
Their prolific travels around the globe have swept up fans across every corner, including non-other than Elwood Blues himself, Dan Aykroyd! Who hailed their “Hot rhythm and blues”, saying Risager has “got a great voice, great delivery and feels the blues. The songs are original, but sound like they come from a Stax recording session circa 1965.”
The band are in white-hot form and will be showcasing their new material across Europe for the rest of 2022. “Playing live in front of an audience makes you feel alive. That’s the best way to describe it, I think. It’s good to feel alive,”” he smiles.
